Razor Blades and Lemon Juice
by Stuart Ryo
Summary: A Sweeney Todd/The Nightmare Before Christmas story, set in an alternate storyline. Material Agent Midnight Cat from Halloween Town is called upon to help new Pumpkin King Jack Skellington on Halloween, but what happens when Jack and Sweeney Todd meet?


Razor Blades and Lemon Juice

A Sweeney Todd/The Nightmare Before Christmas Fanfiction

By Stuart Ryo

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Chapter One: Duck and Dodge, Mr. Todd

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On a Halloween Night long ago, a strange thing happened. This is its tale.

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Attend the story of Sweeney Todd, a rather unusual barber in a rather unusual predicament.

This particular predicament involved a screaming baker and a strangely sharp kitchen knife.

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_Why can't anything go right_, thought the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, as he was chased by the Demon Baker of Meat Pies down an alleyway. A beggar watched the progress of the chase with interest, though not nearly as much interest as his cat, who sat on the wall above resting his paws against his face.

The cat concentrated for a moment, then, as if they formed from the shadows and the light, two robed spirits floated down to sit beside the cat, who stood up.

"Time to get to work," it said, and vanished.

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Toby stood in the doorway of Mrs. Lovett's Pie Shop ("You'll die for them!", the slogan read) and stared after Mrs. Lovett and Mr. Todd, half-humming a tune he vaguely remembered from his days working for Mister Pirelli.

"Hum hum something miracle elixir do di do di doo doo..."

The black cat standing on the steps of the barber shop turned for a moment, then disappeared into the shadows.

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" I'm going to kill you!" screeched Mrs Lovett, brandishing a breadknife and running as fast as she could in high heels and a long dress (by-products of her new and spectacular earnings) after Mr. Todd, who turned a corner, looked back for a second, screamed and started running again.

Sure, she thought, as she chased him, it had been a mistake on her part, but even the bald raving loonies at the asylum knew not to mention to a woman that her hair was blue due to the side effect of a shampoo. If you did mention it, you did so politely and without staring at the offending follicles for twelve minutes before blurting out that the lady in question's hair was reminding the speaker of blueberries and then to ask if the lady was baking a fruit pie, because he was really hungry after all that killing upstairs.

Mrs. Lovett gets in a really foul mood if you mention that her hair is blue. But then that trait is shared by most sensible women.

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Meanwhile, back at the pie shop, a black cat looked around for some means of access onto the roof.

"Why can't I just go from the barber shop?" he wondered aloud. Only the nearest spirit heard him, and floated off a grotty table down to the cats level.

"The instructions were clear," he instructed. "The only way they can get through is if you find a way onto the roof from Mrs. Lovetts Pie Shop. That is part of the arrangement to get you back home."

The cat growled and began to search anew.

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It is a reputable fact that certain spirits and creatures cannot get through the gates between realms unless they either have immense power within their precinct or are allowed through by a Material Agent, a being placed in the human world to do certain things that, baffling though they may seem to a normal person (if any normal person found out about it), somehow weaken the boundaries between realms and allow their friends into the human realm.

This seems simple, until you learn that Material Agents need other Material Agents to start their work. This creates the question of 'where did the first Material Agents come from?'

Anyone who asks questions like that is the same sort of person who contradicts their cat, talks back to boiled eggs and pronounces teatime tay-ah-tah-may. Sensible people accept that some things in reality are impossible to understand and generally regard them as a fact of life.

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Anyway, to cut a long story short, the Material Agent Midnight Cat had performed all the tasks required (befriend a beggar, walk a tightrobe, wear pantaloons and not be embarrassed), and now was halfway up a chimney leading to the roof.

Unfortunately that was the moment Mrs. Lovett returned to find a cats bottom sticking out of the fireplace. Livid women do not make good people for ignoring such things, or taking peaceful measures toward them.

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The cat proceeded quite happily at a constant speed for about one second, then became aware of the stick it was being beaten with.

At which point it shoot up the chimney fast enough to sufficiently get two metres into the air before landing back on the roof in a daze.

The cat thought for a moment, then decided that was too much work and collapsed on its side.

Its robed friends looked at each other, shook their heads and turned to face the full moon, just in time to see a black vortex open and expel a skeleton onto the roof.

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End of Chapter One

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